Chicago`s 10 All-time Best Boxers

July 14, 1985|By List by Sam Smith.

Barney Ross: From the Maxwell Street ghetto on the city`s Near West Side, Ross, who fought between 1929 and 1938, became the world`s first boxer to hold titles in three divisions--lightweight, junior welterweight and welterweight

--and later a World War II hero.

Tony Zale: The ``Man of Steel`` from Gary dominated the middleweight division from 1940, when he first won the title from Al Hostak, to 1948 when he finally surrendered it to Marcel Cerdan. In between were the three memorable bouts with Rocky Graziano, two of which Zale won.

Ernie Terrell: Chicago`s best heavyweight ever, the Farragut High School graduate beat the best heavyweights of the early 1960s. He won the World Boxing Association title in 1965 and surrendered it in a 15-round decision to Muhammad Ali two years later.

Jackie Fields: The West Sider, from the Maxwell Street ghetto like Ross, won the gold medal in the 1924 Olympics as a featherweight and moved to California to start his professional boxing career. But he returned to the Chicago Coliseum in 1929 to win the world`s welterweight title and regained it in 1932 at the Stadium.

Eddie Perkins: Never an exciting boxer because of his deliberate style, South Sider Perkins, nevertheless, went on to win the world`s junior welterweight title twice, fighting principally overseas where decisions are tough for Americans.

Johnny Coulon: The owner of the famous Coulon Gym on East 63d Street, which he operated with his wife for 50 years and which later became the Windy City Gym, dominated the world`s bantamweights in the early 20th Century and was the recognized title-holder from 1910 to 1914.

Leo Rodak: The South Side featherweight was being called the next Barney Ross when he came along in the 1930s and became the first Chicagoan ever to win Golden Gloves championships in three weight classes. He later won the world featherweight title.

Johnny Bratton: The flamboyant South Sider, once among the world`s best lightweights, gained weight and then used his quick hands to gain the vacant welterweight title from Charlie Fusari in 1951, only to lose it later that year in a memorable 15-round bout with the tough Kid Gavilan.

Harold Dade: The onetime drugstore delivery boy from the South Side and local Golden Gloves champion moved to California to begin his professional boxing career and earned the world`s bantamweight title in 1947. He later lost close 10-round decisions to featherweight greats Willie Pep and Sandy Saddler. Nate Bolden: The great middleweight and light heavyweight from the 1930s and 1940s split his four meetings with Zale and defeated Jake LaMotta and numerous heavyweights, although he never held any world title. Other Chicago non-champions just a notch below Bolden include Bob Satterfield, the hard punching heavyweight with the glass jaw; Davey Day, the tough lightweight contender of the 1930s who barely lost a welterweight title bid to Henry Armstrong in 1939; and Earl Mastro, the scrappy featherweight who lost a close, disputed decision to Battling Battalino in a title bout at the Stadium in 1931.